APD plans to add on to real time crime center

It's been three months since the Albuquerque Police Department opened their real time crime center, a one-of-a-kind division that helps officers on dispatched calls.

The unit looks like a master control room inside the downtown police station with several television and computer monitors. Officers are able to monitor social media feeds, video around town and more. They are able to tell what kind of trouble suspects have been in before and they can relay more and more information to officers prior to arriving to an emergency.

"Who owns this particular phone, who lives at this address, who has crisis intervention alerts," T.J Wilham, APD, explained.

Wilham said the $800,000 center has been used to solve hundreds of crimes already that otherwise likely would not have been figured out. In addition, officers have been a lot safer with the division. Wilham said there was one instance where they were able to look up an apprehended suspect and tell officers he had tuberculosis. Without the center, they would have had no idea.

Now, APD says there is already so much success, they plan to grow the real time crime center as much as possible. They plan to add Iphone apps that will have several alerts available for officers, such as when they pass a stolen vehicle or a suspect with an ankle bracelet. They'll also have GPS on the phones so APD will know where they are.

In addition, they would like to add facial recognition so that officers can more easily identify wanted suspects.

Recently, APD Chief Ray Schultz began ordering pregnant and injured officers to work in the real time crime center instead of going to what is commonly known as desk duty. Wilham said it has allowed officers to remain useful and it doesn't take away from patrols. Wilham said with the RTCC, the department is more efficient.

"Our goal is obvious. We want to keep everyone safe and reduce the use of deadly force encounters, that's one of the missions of this division," Wilham said.

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